Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to a vehicle geofence system, and more particularly, to a method of controlling freebooting of a vehicle head unit using a geofence beacon, and an apparatus and system therefor capable of automatically controlling a Bluetooth function of a user equipment (UE) and operation of the vehicle head unit using the geofence beacon.
Discussion of the Related Art
With recent development in electronic control technology, various devices in a vehicle which have previously been operated using a mechanical scheme can now be operated using an electric scheme. As a result, driver convenience, driving safety, and the like have increased.
Recently, a concept known as a “geofence” has been applied to vehicles. The term “geofence” is created by combining the prefix “geo,” which means “earth”, “soil”, etc., with the word “fence”. A dictionary definition of “geofence” is a virtual boundary on actual terrain. When a monitored vehicle or an external terminal linked to the vehicle crosses a preset geofence, a geofence observer may detect the vehicle or the external terminal to control a particular device in the vehicle or provide various vehicle-related services to an external vehicle management center (e.g., a vehicle telematics server) or a preregistered device.
Meanwhile, many recently developed vehicles provide a Bluetooth pairing function for the vehicle to pair with a mobile phone. When a driver carrying a preregistered mobile phone enters such vehicle and activates a Bluetooth function of the mobile phone, a vehicle head unit having the Bluetooth function automatically detects the preregistered mobile phone and attempts Bluetooth pairing.
However, conventional Bluetooth pairing has been inconvenient in that a driver needs to activate a Bluetooth function of a mobile phone of the driver each time the driver starts a vehicle. Because battery consumption of the mobile phone is high when Bluetooth persistently activated, mobile phone users usually deactivate the Bluetooth function included in the mobile phone.
In addition, some recently developed vehicles have a freebooting function of a vehicle head unit. However, the function starts a freebooting procedure of the vehicle head unit when a vehicle receives a door unlocking signal. Thus, the function has been disadvantageous in that a driver cannot use various functions of the vehicle head unit until the freebooting procedure is completed after the driver enters the vehicle. In general, the vehicle head unit may provide a navigation function, a backup camera function, etc., in addition to a multimedia reproduction function.